OLP & Collective Soul to perform March 4 in St. Catharines

Preview by Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

@joshuamaloni

To celebrate an anniversary is to look back and commemorate something already accomplished. … In the past. To mark that which happened. … Before now.

But for Our Lady Peace, their 30^th anniversary tour has an entirely different purpose.

“More than anything, I hope people just walk away from these shows saying, ‘Wow, that is the best that I've ever seen Our Lady Peace,’ ” frontman Raine Maida said Thursday. “If there's any motivation there, it's not about a nostalgia thing. It's like, ‘Holy shit, this band just keeps going and getting better.’ ”

To that end, OLP fans are getting new songs – and new setlists – at each tour stop.

Of the material, Maida said, “I don't know if we do this – if I'm motivated to really go play shows – if it's just for nostalgia’s sake. I'm not that guy; I got to be honest. It's just not something that resonates with me. And I know … there's tons of bands that say, ‘Why bother?’ People just want to hear the hits. Just do that.’

“That has nothing to do with me. To me, it's about a show; and it has to be dynamic and fluid, and that has to have a component of, ‘What did you just do? What are you talking about now? Where's your head at? What are you thinking about? What are you trying to say musically?’ Because once you shut that valve off, it really just becomes a business. The art is gone, to me.”

So, while fans can expect to hear hits such as “Naveed,” “Superman’s Dead,” “Somewhere Out There,” “Innocent,” “One Man Army” and “Starseed,” they’ll also hear fresh tracks “Sound the Alarm,” “I Wanna Be Your Drug” and “No Angels In This Town.” Each new song is reflective of North America’s fragmented state, and each carries a cry for compassion.

As to the order, Maida said, “The idea of switching it up night to night is important to us. So, we’re adding like three new songs tonight that we haven't played in a while, and we'll just keep switching it up.

“To be honest, it's a challenge. It's like, now I gotta go to sound check, and now we have to literally go to work a bit and make sure that we can play these songs as well as the other ones, when there's new ones.

“But I think the fans are appreciating it. I think we're seeing people talk about it in terms of, ‘Holy shit, this was completely different from the night before.’

“I think that's just part of this thing. As you play more shows – and we have people that have been to 30 or 40 concerts now – it's like, ‘Hey, this isn't something we just punch in, punch out of.’

“We're trying to do our part to make sure that you get to hear some deeper cuts. We took fan polls on Discord and a platform I have called Fandrop just to let people weigh in. Like, ‘What do you want to hear, actually? Whoever votes the most votes for this song, we're gonna play it.’ We do a poll for the encore during the show.”

“It's about making this communal, right?” he said. “We want the fans to be as big a part of this tour as we are.”

As part of their 30^th anniversary, Our Lady Peace released a special “OLP30” collection. Each of the three volumes comes with a new song and “revisits” seminal hits. (Image courtesy of Red Umbrella P.R.)

WATCH:

••••••••

For this run of shows, Our Lady Peace found the perfect tag-team partner in Collective Soul. The Atlanta band hit its own 30-year milestone in 2024 – and just like OLP, continues to write and record new music.

The tour stops at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Ontario, on Tuesday, March 4.

“We met those guys back in like ’98 or ’99,” Maida said. “They were just great guys from the beginning, and we ended up playing in all these radio festivals across America with them over the next 10 years.”

It was about eight years ago when the two bands reconnected.

“They asked us to come tour with them, and so we did a bunch of amphitheaters one summer with them, and that was amazing,” Maida said. “It was just such a perfect fit. And so, when we were thinking about this tour, I mean, the thing about Collective Soul … when you see these guys live, they're a true rock ’n’ roll band. I don't think the general public understands how great of a rock ’n’ roll band they are. We knew that; and so, we just figured, ‘Hey, we want to tour with people that we like, that we know are going to put on an amazing show every night,’ and they're the top of the list.”

(Image courtesy of Red Umbrella P.R.)

••••••••

Though Maida isn't one to flaunt his own clips, he does want to leave a legacy – as a musician, as a husband and father, and as a global citizen.

So far, he’s succeeding at each task.

At the 2014 Juno award ceremony, Maida and his wife, singer Chantal Kreviazuk, were presented with The Allan Waters Humanitarian Award in recognition of “an outstanding Canadian artist whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced the social fabric of Canada and/or whose impact can be felt worldwide." He has worked with War Child Canada – launching its Busking for Change program – and was appointed a member of the Order of Canada for “efforts to raise awareness and support for numerous causes, including human and animal rights, mental health, education and the environment.” In 2016, Maida received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Niagara University. This summer, OLP will be inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame.

“I think a lot of it stems from just the philosophy of like – and I'm not putting myself in any class of greatness – when you're striving for that, the devil's in the details, right?,” Maida said. “I don't know. I just have that impulse to make sure that all those details are trying to get closer to that greatness level.

“And so, I enjoy it, and I enjoy the challenge of it all. And I think, at this point – especially as you get older and you do have kids, it's legacy stuff. Like, my kids watch all this shit now. It's going to live forever. I don't want stuff that is half-baked. I want to be proud of it. I want fans, and I want my kids, to be proud of the stuff that's going to live past me.”

Connect with OLP: Website | X | Facebook | IG | YouTube | TikTok.

WATCH:

See also >> Q&A: Collective Soul to accompany Our Lady Peace on 30th anniversary Canadian tour